Contributed by: Dillon Caudle

McDonald's reports its first quarterly sales miss in four years, citing weak international growth linked to the Israel-Gaza conflict and customer boycotts fueled by "misinformation." CEO Chris Kempczinski acknowledges the impact, with shares falling 4%.

1. This article involves the idea of corporate social responsibility by showing how politics can reflect on how well a business is doing.
2. This article relates to cognitive dissonance as some customers likely experienced such and could not justify purchasing food from McDonalds.
3. This article relates to respect for people as it shows that people are willing to stand up and boycott misinformation.

Submitted by: Noemi

Google facing lawsuit over their digital ad sales (accusing them of monopolistic practices).

1. Consent - Google is not consenting to allowing others to sell digital ads, not to mention sharing information about their customers to ad purchasers.

2. Deontology - doing the right thing, duties, Google feels like it is their obligation to do their sales the way they do, without considering the monopolistic practices.

3. Ethics - Google is faced with the choice of doing the right thing, by their customers and competitors (the legal thing).

Submitted by: Noemi

A worker was injured in a diamond mine in Canada. Done w/ Dr. B on 02-05-24

1. CSR - the responsibility companies have to keep workers safe

2. Accountability - importance of adhering to safety measures

3. Imago dei - all of humanity was created in God's image and deserves to be safe at work.

Submitted by: Dr. B

A bank in France is cutting jobs.

1. Layoffs present an ethical dilemma for businesses, as they navigate the lesser of bad choices, often.

2. There's also a lot of cognitive dissonance for those responsible for deciding who to layoff in situations like this.

3. If Rawls were helping these business leaders make these decisions, he would suggest using the veil of ignorance, so that the thought experiment could help them make a better decision.

Contributed by: Dr. B

The increase in AI drives more demand for chips to run the servers that power AI.

1. Utilitarianism ties in here, as they attempt to meet the needs of customers and investors, achieving the greatest good for the greatest number.

2. Jeremy Bentham (philosopher who came up with the ideas behind utilitarianism) would have asked a lot of questions about how much happiness was being driven, given the competing demands.

3. The Foxconn Chairman is attempting ethical business communication in sharing this news about the company's financial results.

h/t: Alyssa (posted by Dr. B)

I had to share Alyssa's trolley problem humor here, as it's cracking me up over here today. Enjoy.

Submitted by Dr. B

The US government is going to be giving subsidies (which can be in the form of cash, or tax breaks, depending on how they get set up) to compose that make microchips (technology).

1) Relates to utilitarianism: greatest good for the greatest number (having more chips produced means other companies can grow/create products that depend on having these available)

2) Relates to ethics, in general: what is the "right" way to use scarce resources ~ in this case federal monies... The US government sees benefits coming for many, with this investment in this technology.

3) Relates to fundamental rights, whose rights may be impacted (positively or negatively) as a result of these new plants / new production in the US.

Contributed by: Dr. B

Spotify doesn't like how Apple plans to comply with the EU's DMA (digital markets act), which is changing their requirements for the App Store.

1) Relates to emotional intelligence, since all these executives and lawmakers need to have a lot of it in order to negotiate well and lead their employees through these circumstances.

2) Relates to cognitive dissonance; our family owns a lot of Apple products and we're big fans. I'm sure I'm a victim of cognitive dissonance as I think about how I interpret some of Apple's choices on things like this.

3) Relates to CSR corporate social responsibility. Thinking about their investors, customers, and how their decisions impact the planet.

Contributed by: Dr. B

X (formerly known as Twitter) is hiring 100 content moderators to focus on fighting against content related to child abuse on the social media platform.

1) Relates to utilitarianism: X attempting to create the "greatest good for the greatest number," and historically that has meant focusing more on allowing for few content /account restrictions on the platform.

2) Relates to the trolley problem: only instead of choosing between one or five people dying, trying to balance out the "right" number of people to moderate content on X vs allowing for the "free" flow of posts, regardless of potential for harm done.

3) Relates to Rawls' veil of ignorance: what if in attempting to resolve these issues, they were to wrestle with the issues, not knowing who they would be in the situation (the parent of the child who has been abused, the people wanting to exchange ideas, etc.).

Submitted by: Dr. B

1) This video is part of their series at the annual CES conference, in this case, looking at farming technology

2) Sustainable farming advancements are shown, such as driving the tractor and changing its route remotely.

3) They are able to only spray pesticides where weeds are seen via a camera vs continuously spraying the entire route.

Submitted by: Dr. b

1) consumerism - advertising to get us to want things we don’t need (at least that’s what I keep telling myself here… the Stachowiak family has been watching this space with interest for some time 😇)

2) Video for the new augmented and virtual headset from Apple.

3) There has been a lot of commentary on the ways in which a device like this takes us away / distracts us from those we care about. The ethics of making money off of this.

Not having to do with ethics, exactly… this is a really cool advertisement.

Submitted by: Dr. b

1) I didn’t think I would be posting another car-related video tonight, but this one intrigued me. I didn’t really connect the brand of Sony in my mind as much to cars. 2) It was interesting to see their emphasis on safety and privacy as cutting edge innovation. 3) How could I forget the part about the guy driving the car with a video game controller? 😂 “The spotlight, however, was on Sony’s Afeela car, gearing up for its debut in Gran Turismo 7. And Izumi Kawanishi, Afeela’s president and COO, driving the car on stage with a PlayStation controller? Here’s everything you missed.” That was from the video description.

Submitted by: Dr. B

1) We (the Stachowiaks) got our first electric car just about a year ago now. So, I watch more car videos that I used to… A lot more. One thing that many of the reviewers have complained about is that the in-car technology on a lot of these newer cars makes it so difficult to do the most basic of things ~ including to adjust the temperature.

2) This video shows some advances coming from VW (being shown off at the CES show in Vegas this week) include using AI to control the in-car tech (including adjusting the temperature by just saying, “I’m cold,” which kinda cracked me up, while also seeming impressive.

3) This could all impact safety in the long run, if people aren’t having to press a bunch of on-screen buttons and go through a bunch of options just to do something as simple as making it hotter or colder in the car.

Submitted by: Dr. B

1) More about Davos (my last post shared an article about what it is... in case you want to learn more about the meeting, in general.

2) Themes for this year's Davos Economic Forum 2024.

3) Resilience, sustainability, reimagine globalization, generative AI, inclusive - equitable growth.

Submitted by: Dr. B

1) The Davos meeting is an important one, in terms of international partnerships and global cooperation.

2) Not surprisingly, two of the areas of focus this year are AI and security.

3) There's an element of sustainability that is key... and involves governments, businesses, and society, as a whole.

Submitted by: Dr. b

1) A private company is headed on a mission to the moon and plans to leave human remains there.

2) Given that the moon is a sacred space for the Navajo Nation, they object to this mission and have asked the government to prevent this from happening.

3) Most of us would agree in the importance of the value of freedom. Where things get messy, is when one person”s freedom to do something infringes on another person’s freedoms.

On an entirely different note, it was a VU student taking business ethics last year who told me about this news source (Morning Brew), which has grown to become one of my favorites over this past year. They keep their stories brief like this and report in a neutral, more fact/evidence-based way.

Shared by: Dr. B

1) Famous investor and billionaire Warren Buffett emphasizes the importance of carving out time for thinking as successful people

2) In the study of ethics and cultivating our character, time for reflection and thinking is essential, too (this isn’t said in the article, but I’m wanting to show how this article connects with our class).

3) Warren Buffet also stresses how much reading plays into his success. “Buffett suggests that anyone hoping to achieve similar success should read 500 pages per day.” My goodness is that ever a lot of reading.

Submitted by: Dr. B

1. Long-form journalism, exploring defects in Teslas not made public by the company.

2. Extensive investigation by journalists at Reuters. Quantitative and qualitative information throughout.

3. Part of the story about self-driving cars gets me to thinking about the 'trolley problem' / utilitarianism baked into those algorithms.

If you're interested in this sort of thing, Brian Christian's The Alignment Problem is a very good book on artificial intelligence and the problem of when the AI is out of alignment with the developers goals.

Contributed by: Dr. B

On making an impact

"It is about making some kind of dent in the world so that the world is different than it was before you practiced your craft."

• Stephen Brookfield

Brookfield is referring to teaching, but he might as well be talking about whatever it is we do for a living. May we be the kind of people who leave a mark of love in the world. May we be people known for our love and kindness.

busn435 #busn435-24s

Submitted by: Dr. B

1) cheaper alternative malaria vaccine, which is also easier to produce means fewer children dying of malaria each year

2) AI has allowed for the discovery of a new antibiotic, as well as a new class of antibiotics

3) global wealth equality is rising (this one surprised me and is wonderful news all around)

Submitted by Dr. B

1. Truthfulness in advertising lawsuit
2. Details shown in candy advertisement weren’t the same as what this woman purchased
3. “The complaint said Hershey's labels "are materially misleading and numerous consumers have been tricked and misled by the pictures on the products' packaging."”

Submitted by: Dr. B

1) New/old building material (wood) for sustainable skyscrapers 2) "“This is what we have: concrete, steel, masonry and wood. That’s it. And the only path forward to get us to carbon-neutral buildings is timber,” said Green, who designed the seven-story T3 building in Minneapolis, completed in 2016, using timber salvaged from trees killed by beetles" 3) High safety ratings, as they burn at a steady, measurable rate (unlike steel)

Submitted by: Dr. B

1) Self-checkout is being scrutinized at Dollar General. 2) They are increasing staffing, with the goal of raising sales and lowering the amount of theft being experienced. 3) Their CEO said that they had "started to rely too much this year on self-checkout in our stores."

Submitted by: Dr. B

1) Shohei Ohtani moves from the angels to the dodgers 2) 700 million comp 3) income gets based in our society on… ?